FG16 brings dozens upon dozens of new artistic works from Portland’s teeming jungle of artists to thrive on stages, nooks and crannies all over Portland for 11 days from Thursday, January 21 to Sunday, January 31, 2016.

Fertile Ground 2016 is a 11-day arts festival that will be held January 21 through 31 in Portland, Oregon. This city-wide festival is focused on new work in the Arts. It will feature world premiere projects, staged readings, developing works and a myriad of other arts events from the Portland creative community. The 2015 Festival included more than 75 Portland-generated new works. From fully staged world premieres in theatre, to ensemble and collaborative driven work, dance, comedy, visual art and film…this festival spans the spectrum of creative endeavor and seeds the next generation of creation through artist conversations, workshops, lunchtime readings and more.

Faith Helma –local theatre-maker, Hand2Mouth member and performance artist turned life
coach & creative guide – presents her solo performance / manifesto at Portland’s
Fertile Ground Festival. She’s been crafting this solo performance for over a year, testing it in
various forms in such places as the NW New Works Festival in Seattle and
Risk/Reward in Portland.

Now she’s ready to present the full show in all its flawed glory to Portland.
Join Coach Helma on an expedition into an alternate world, in which we find
freedom through failure, speaking truth to power and dancing like jackasses.
(Note: no one in the audience will be asked to dance like a jackass. That is a
challenge Coach Helma undertakes on your behalf.

The new expressionistic performance adaptation of The Yellow Wallpaper by Sue Mach and conceived by Grace Carter is based on the American short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The story follows Charlotte, a woman confined to a single bedroom for three months in 1890 – a “rest cure” for her postpartum depression. Isolated and under-stimulated, Charlotte turns to an interior world of imagination, obsessing on the room’s ghastly wallpaper, until a trapped woman appears to her in the pattern. This multi-disciplinary installation descends to Charlotte’s inner landscape, following her “mad” journey through constraint, to creativity, transformation and freedom. This world premiere co-production features performances by Grace Carter, Christy Bigelow and Chris Harder as part of CoHo’s 20th Season: Great Journeys in Small Spaces. “Mach’s plays, tackle dense social and political issues with the clarion voice of both a teacher and a formidable storyteller.” – Portland Monthly. “Gripping…defies dramatic conventions…tantalizingly elusive.” – The Oregonian of Carter’s 4.48 Psychosis.